Local parent stumbles into pedophile-infested game

So to ask the obvious question...

Staff have modified the minimum age.

Are players and staff complaining about being forced to do so?

Does the implicit issue of the 13 year old minimum age not warrant the update by itself?

If the change has been decided and you have successfully nipped problematic labeling/association in the bud why continue to attack the source or complain of sources?

Continuing to draw attention to the situation while supposedly making decisions to resolve the situation just keeps the original problem on the mind and doesn't allow you to move away from it. Would you continue to do this weird post resolution complaining on a mainstream forum and not trolling the shadowboard?

A lot of players have complained, sure. A lot of the complaints are very sly and are written along the lines of "I don't care, but I don't see why this is necessary".

Regarding those complaining people: logically, if you don't see why it's necessary, then you do care, because you sense a lack of necessity and see the need to express such. If you don't care you would shrug, and then that would be the end of it. Instead, they:
- see the need to feign a lack of caring, because they're going to bring up some discourse that they think others will find unacceptable
- introduce the possibility that the change was unnecessary, because their perception of the game is completely the opposite of Exodus's, and frankly the staff, considering they saw it was necessary to change the game

I think this change is going to be like the rape change for some people. There were a few people who could just not let go for months after the fact, and similar people are going to keep bringing up the age change in a snide way.

The other set of complaints are along the lines of "fake player, didn't actually see what they're complaining about, etc." which, I will say again, is just yet another way to dismiss criticism and dissent, and encourage newbies to be silent. It is precisely the worst attitude you can have as a veteran if your goal is to entice new players to try your game out. I don't expect @qwerty to prove a negative, but I also expect veterans to have sympathy for newbies. It doesn't matter if a request was submitted if the characters of pedos are sexually harassing the players of child characters. The staff should simply fix the underlying issue, and they did, at least partially. Also, the request tool is notoriously hard for newbies to navigate. I'd be willing to bet that, if anything, Exodus sent an email to the mud account or webmaster account and thought that was sufficient, since most games use email systems to facilitate player-staff communication, rather than a ticket system.

It's not only intellectually lazy to complain about this change along the two avenues I discussed, it is disingenuous and hostile toward new players. Again, for a game trying to recruit new players, this behavior flies in the face of that goal.

Fine idea in theory, until you see that the request tool is an extra element of red tape that's a convenient place for staff to bury complaints while claiming to address them. There's a reason why I have those threads going about how long it takes for staff to resolve complaints: they take a long time. If a player complaint on harassment takes a week to resolve, that's a week from the time of reporting to the time of resolution that a potential harasser has to continuously harass their victim. And let's not pretend that harassment and stalking doesn't happen on an OOC level within the game, it absolutely does. Players have been banned for it (and then, in some cases, unbanned, despite the risk they pose to rule-abiding players).

Armageddon defenders can't just stand behind a couple of supposedly fake complaints and use them to assume that all complaints are fake, and the Armageddon community wouldn't be as inclined to do this if they showed themselves to be more capable of self-reflection. For example: look at that Reddit thread and this thread and see how many people tried to carry water for Arm before staff changed their age policy. Staff knew it was a problem regardless of how many requests or emails they received; they have never changed something so glaring so quickly in the face of public criticism before. Staff recognized that there was a problem, then Exodus's review came out, and staff decided what the problem was and made an attempt to fix it. This is a positive example of self-reflection and staff should be commended for making the right decision, unpopular as it was with some of the players.

Instead of distrusting every bit of criticism Armageddon people come across, they should trust it at first, then work to verify it. They would have a much better game and community for it.

I just want to point out, that requests taking a long time to resolve is a "good" thing.

Resolution of a request doesnt mean that somebody read it. Most requests are read within hours of them being posted. Resolution of a request usually means that the issue has been closed. So a request might stay open for a week and there could be 50 posts beneath it of staff interacting with each other, reporting on what was done, how, what else needs to be done, etc. And only after everything gets done and there is no reason for request to be open anymore, will it get resolved.

So saying a request taking a week to resolve means a harasser has a week to continue, is completely not how request system works.

Let's say you open a request about harassment. A staffer reads it. What then? He resolves it with a "I'll look into it?" That is "the best" way to bury a request actually, because few staffers actually read 'resolved' requests. So if a staffer resolves it instantly and then does 'nothing', there is a likelyhood that it wont be noticed. But if stays open, then it's on every affiliated staffer's dash and they need to read it to see if they can resolve it. They read it and the discussion attached to it and work together on figuring out what to do.

So a player opens a request ticket. Someone reads it. Next steps? Pulling run logs to find the situation the player is describing. If it's a badly informed situation, then clarification inquests. Then a call for all other staff to pitch in, maybe they observed something similar during their monitoring. Then waiting for the player to login. Then observing him directly. Finally, pulling him in to have a conversation with him. Then however it turns out. The player would get a "Thank you for your feedback" request resolution.

Request system is actually a good way to 'not' bury problems. Staff complaints can be resolved by producers only. Player complaints by admin only. Whoever resolves it, puts their name there. So if a request gets resolved without due investigation and it floats up, the culprit is clearly visible and will be questioned why this happened. If the request is not resolved, it stays up in their dash for all that time. Admins watch out for requests staying open for too long on their STs plate.

Only times when requests get seriously missed is when a person asks a question, or when there is a role call. Role calls sometimes get skipped over because there's a shit load of them all of the sudden. And some types of questions can be answered only by admin and others by ST. Which sometimes tend to get mixed, so everyone relies on the other to answer it. Especially if half of staff is not too certain on the answer anyway. Kind of like when questions on ask the staff sometimes remain unknown. STs dont really have an authoritative answer, so buck keeps getting passed. But those a questions. Actual administrative actions, or support, or some world reaction, the response is pretty quick thanks for request tool, not in spite of it. Just remember that only because "you" only see a "thanks for the feedback, request resolved." doesnt mean there isn't a 50 post thread underneath it of staffers furiously debating wtf to do.

There is a reason why Request system exists. And anyone who seriously thinks it "adds" to red tape and makes things extra complicated simply does not understand how it works. Sending in emails was a "lot" more inefficient. I was in the era of emails and fuck, did a lot of stuff get lost, misplaced, and forgotten. Probably lost a good amount of players due to that. With requests. Yes. Sometimes some requests take a long time to resolve. But since they're pretty blatant and in your face for staffers when they remain open. The long time of a request being opens means there is a reason for it.

People should worry more when their requests get resolved instantly. Because then instead of 10 different staffers reading it and pitching in on it, only one have and then who knows what'll happen.

... What inefficiency? Are you implying that it should work like this?


Player A sends in a player complaint.
Staff reads it. Insta bans the player whom the complaint was filed on and then closed a request.


Is that how you expect it to work?

Are you back to posting reductionist nonsense and proving you're just a troll again?

Let's say a player is getting harassed. I'll spell it out for you, and for everyone else who's curious about how the system actually works:

- So a player opens a request ticket. They don't wish up as it's happening, allowing staff to respond immediately; they put in a request so it sits on a long line of things to investigate and resolve, opening the complainant to continued harassment.

- Someone reads it. Finally.

- Next steps? Pulling run logs to find the situation the player is describing. Only Admins+ can access the runlog, and only Producers can resolve staff complaints, so it's only in the interest of Producers to investigate. Runlogs get wiped and get turned into "old runlogs" on each reboot, and a following reboot wipes the old runlog, so if the request was submitted before two reboots, it's now impossible to get a runlog.

- If it's a badly informed situation, then clarification inquests. Requiring more time to formulate questions and receive responses from a player who presumably described their situation as best as they could.

- Then a call for all other staff to pitch in, maybe they observed something similar during their monitoring. Unless staff are specifically told to pay attention to staff complaints, they generally don't bother with this. They don't even resolve character reports in a timely fashion a lot of the time, why would they comment on something above their paygrade?

- Then waiting for the player to login. Then observing him directly. More time wasted waiting for the player to login, more time wasted for other players when their staff stop watching them, etc. This is the most inefficient and ridiculous part of the process. Ideally, their behavior should have already been caught by the staff assigned to monitor their clan group.

- Finally, pulling him in to have a conversation with him. The only actually useful part of this process besides getting lucky enough with the runlog. Live conversations just work better for player-staff relations in any game where communication is text-based.

- Then however it turns out. The player would get a "Thank you for your feedback" request resolution.
The complainant never gets an idea of what happened, if anything. Contrast with games that publicize their moderation actions, both for the purposes of informing people about resolved problems, and general responsibility to keep staff actions transparent. Perhaps the guilty party disappeared, perhaps they're given more time to perpetuate the same behavior they were already carrying out.

You seem oddly opposed to discussing the staff's willingness to accept criticism compared to the players. Is that a tough subject for you?